Its setting among New Zealand’s Maori warriors aside, you’d be forgiven for dismissing The Dead Lands (Magnolia) at first glance as one of those subcompetent C-movie action flicks that populate …
‘Hard to Be a God’ Depicts an Alien World Mired in Medieval Misery
Cinema has been transporting us to other worlds since the Méliès brothers sent us on our first trip to the moon in 1902, but no moviegoer has ever before glimpsed …
Netflix Delivers Its First Truly Great Original Series With ‘Bloodline’
Netflix has created several popular television series, and now it has created its first great one. That would be Bloodline, the noir-ish family drama that premiered earlier this spring. Created …
‘Slow West’ Can’t Escape the Shadow of Its Classic Predecessors
One of the problems with Westerns at this point is that it’s hard to watch them without seeing other Westerns. You notice the plots and the characters you’ve seen before, …
Ryan Gosling Loses the Course in Writing/Directing Debut ‘Lost River’
Lost River (Warner Home Video streaming, Blu-ray, and DVD ) is the kind of movie where a flaming bicycle rolls through a scene for no reason. It’s the kind of …